Author: Joe3

You know Trump’s penchant for referring to the media as the “enemy of the people” is reckless (at best). [For more on why it’s reckless, see our previous post about rhetoric.] You know that adherents of ideologues throughout history have used that phrase to ignite ire in the hearts of their followers (Nazis, Marxists/Leninists, etc). But did you know there’s a word (from the discipline known as Cultural Studies) that refers to the phenomenon wherein a commonly used phrase dredges up the cultural baggage of those people and/or movements who used it in the past?

That word is intertextuality and, according to the Oxford Dictionary of Critical Theory, it is defined as:

… a theory of meaning and meaning production. It holds that all texts (in the widest sense of the term – e.g., written works, films, art, etc) are composed of other, pre-existing texts held together in a state of constant interaction. It means that there are no original texts, no complete texts, and no singular texts: all texts exist within a state of partiality and inter-dependency with other texts. This is not simply a fact of language, but a necessary precondition.

The Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory credits Julia Kristeva with coining the term in 1966 as a way of “denoting the interdependence of literary texts, the interdependence of any one literary text with all those that have gone before it.”

Now, I know what you’re thinking: all this talk of literary terms, and texts is kind of high-brow and smacks of intellectualism. This isn’t exactly Trump’s forte. I mean, he doesn’t even read.

I agree. It seems somewhat outside his grasp. He does, however, have advisors and maybe even a speech writer on his staff (although I wouldn’t want to cop to having that job), and one or two of them are likely aware of it. If that’s the case, the President’s use of “enemy of the people” would be an example of what’s known as “obligatory intertextuality,” which occurs when “the writer deliberately invokes a comparison or association between two (or more) texts.”

And what about the audience (those hearing the president’s words)? What if they don’t understand or catch the reference to the earlier uses of the term?

In this regard, intertextuality is like the Washington Post in that, if you don’t get it, you don’t get it.* In other words, for those that understand the phrase’s cultural significance, they get the full force of it, with all its cultural baggage. If they don’t, then they take it at face value.

This brings us to another intriguing term that’s been getting a lot of play lately: dog whistle.

At the beginning of his essay “On Noise,” the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer writes:

The super abundant display of vitality, which takes the form of knocking, hammering, and rumbling things about, has proved a daily torment to me all my life long. There are people, it is true — a great many people — who smile at such things, because they are not sensitive to noise; but they are just the very people who are also not sensitive to argument, or thought, or poetry, or art, in a word, to any kind of intellectual influence. The reason of it is that the tissue of their brains is of a very rough and course quality.

Wow. Dumb people aren’t bothered by noise because their brain tissue is rough and course. Just wow. How is this dude a renowned philosopher? And while we’re asking questions, what is noise anyway? It seems to be one of those words that is difficult to define, yet something we “know” when we hear it.

This hasn’t stopped lexicographers from trying, though. The Oxford English Dictionary, for example, defines noise as:

1) Loud outcry, clamor, or shouting; din or disturbance made by one or more persons
2) Common talk, rumor, report; evil report, slander, scandal, etc. (Obsolete)
3) A loud or harsh sound of any kind; a din
4) A sound which is not remarkably loud
5) An agreeable or melodious sound. (Now rare)
6) To make an outcry, to talk much or loudly about a particular thing.

Clearly, not all of these definitions1 (e.g., 2, 4, 5, and 6) apply to the way Schopenhauer uses the word noise in the excerpt above. This makes sense, however, as there is more than one kind of noise. It’s also not surprising (and perhaps a good example of how dictionary makers “borrow” from one another), that many of the other dictionaries on the SDCL’s shelves offer the exact same definitions of noise, save for the addition of engineering’s use of noise to refer to any interference that reduces the clarity or quality of a signal.

That said, as if to reduce the “noise” and/or enhance the clarity of the word’s definition between its covers, the first definition for noise in the American Heritage Dictionary (1969) reads, “A sound of any kind, especially when loud, confused, indistinct, or disagreeable.” Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) takes a similar approach and bolsters its entry for noise with a sense that reads, “sound: especially one that lacks agreeable musical quality or is noticeably unpleasant.”

I get the feeling that ol’ Schopenhauer would approve.

And speaking of music, I thought it’d be worthwhile to see what my music dictionaries would have to say about noise, so I hastily opened their covers, some of which uttered an audible crack. Much to my dismay, of the five on the shelf only two — the Lectionary2 of Music (Slonimsky) and the Music Theory Dictionary (Lee) — had anything to say on the matter. The former defines noise as:

A collection of tonally unrelated simultaneous sounds of different frequencies and intensities, meaningless to musical or even unmusical ears…. White noise is an integral assembly of sounds of various frequencies.

Putting aside the phrase “unmusical ears,” the Music Theory Dictionary cranks it up to 11 and, in addition to offering an (acoustical) definition of noise, “A sound with partials of irregular proportion,” [What? – Ed.] provides a nice definition of what’s commonly known as “experimental” or “noise” music:

The attempt to increase the material of music by including noises to reflect the complexity of modern life. Accomplished through the use of six families of noises to be reproduced mechanically, i.e. (1) booms, thunderclaps, explosions, etc. (2) whistles, hisses, etc. (3) whispers, murmurs, etc. (4) screams, screeches, etc. (5) noises obtained by percussion on metals, wood, etc. and (6) voices of animals and men, shouts, shrieks, groans, etc.

Given his displeasure at hearing “hammering” in his vicinity, it’s safe to say Schopenhauer wouldn’t care for the noise music and its sounds “obtained by percussion on metals, wood, etc.” I’m also willing to bet that our esteemed philosopher wouldn’t care much for the sounds at the root of the word’s etymology. I know I wouldn’t. I can’t take hearing them now.

If what I just wrote isn’t clear, just listen …

According to Eric Partridge’s Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, the word noise was adopted by Middle English speakers from Old French noise, meaning noisy, strife, din, which is derived from Latin nausea and the noise “made by a ship full of [seasick] passengers groaning and vomiting during bad weather.”2

Eww. Etymology is gross.

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Notes:

Some of these definitions (2 and 6) pertain to gossiping or “raising a stink” about a particular issue in the news that “sticks in your craw.” One (4) pertains to seemingly any noise at all that isn’t music, as in “My Rice Krispies make noise when I pour milk over them,” and the last (5) seems to reference the idea of “making a joyful noise.”

Is “Lectionary” a word? I can tell you the spell check in the old Word Press ain’t too keen on it. Thus, I looked it up. The short answer is yes, it is. A lectionary is “a book or a list of lections for reading in a divine service.” That seems like a rather haughty title to give your book, but … you know … to each his own I guess. So what’s alection then? Lection refers to “a version of a passage in a particular copy or edition of a text; a variant reading” or, in other words, a selection from a larger passage. Now we know.

In the wake of the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, reporters, commentators, and talking heads of every sort have argued that the perpetrator was spurred on by President Trump’s demeaning and divisive rhetoric against immigrants, the media, Democrats, and pretty much anyone who refuses to bow down and kiss his ring. The President, of course, denies any culpability and has struggled to deflect such accusations on to the media for its insistence on reporting1 the hateful things he says in public.

Sigh ….

All of this makes me wonder if the President knows what rhetoric is. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), rhetoric is defines as:

1) The art of using language so as to persuade or influence others
2) Speech or writing expressed in terms calculated to persuade; hence language characterized by artificial or ostentatious expression
3) Skill in or faculty of using eloquent and persuasive language

On one hand, I’d say he is aware of it. Even though it’d be a stretch to call the man eloquent, there is no doubt that he knows how to speak to the folks that make up his base and keep them on his side. Yet, if that’s true — if he’s deliberately using language to influence the behavior of his supporters — then it presents something of a problem, for he should then understand how the rhetorical devices that pepper his “speeches” (e.g., the references to immigrants as “invaders” and all the rest of his demeaning language) might spur some of those supporters to shoot up a synagogue.

Etymology: Say What?

Rhetoric2, says the Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories, is a Middle English word that comes from Old French rethorique, via Latin and Greek rhetorike (tekhne “art” + rhetor “rhetor”). In ancient Greece, a rhetor, says the (Ayto) Dictionary of Word Origins, was a “public speaker” or an “orator.” Partridge’s Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English offers a more detailed account:

Greek rhematikos, adjective of rhema, a word … rhema is akin to Greek rhetor, a “teacher of oratory,” whence via Late Latin, “the learned,” English “rhetor“. Both rhema and rhetor, for wherma and whretor, derive from eiro (werio), “I say.”

Persuasiveness over Truthfulness

So in the end, rhetoric boils down to the words that you or I “say,” but what if, when all is said and done, you haven’t said much of anything? This, sadly, is what rhetoric has come to mean today, and not just because of our current president.

As noted in the Oxford Dictionary of Critical Theory, rhetorical skills were revered in antiquity. Nowadays, not so much.

[Rhetoric] has been the subject of scholarly study since at least the 4th century BC. It was a central component of Classical learning alongside logic and grammar in both Athens and Rome,3 where it was divided into three categories: judicial, deliberative, and epideictic. While Classical scholars considered rhetorical skill essential to the good conduct of both politics and philosophy, and as a consequence eminent scholars of the time like Aristotle wrote treatises on the subject, over time, but especially in the Romantic period, rhetoric has come under suspicion for emphasizing persuasiveness over truthfulness. Rhetoric in some contexts, particularly in the political arena, has become a code word for empty or insubstantial discourse.

The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy offers a similar, albeit more succinct, take on the subject. Its entry for rhetoric reads, “Speech or writing that lacks substance but is aimed at persuading an audience is often called ‘mere rhetoric.'”

Even the Oxford Dictionary of Psychology piles on. It defines rhetoric as “The art of persuasive, influential, or entertaining speech or oratory” and “bombastic or mannered speech or writing, or language that seems impressive but lacks true meaning.”

Lacks substance? Bombastic? Emphasizing persuasiveness over truthfulness? This is beginning to sound familiar. It’s almost as if these books were written with a particular person in mind.

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Notes:

1) I thought it might be useful to point out that the Oxford Dictionary of Journalism defines reporter as “A journalist who finds things out rather than one who merely processes, polishes, and presents the work of others…. Their role is, essentially, to discover and/or verify fresh information about topical and newsworthy events, to turn such information into stories appropriate to their news organization’s outlets, and — just as important — to discard information that does not stand up to scrutiny.”

2) According to the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, the spelling of rhetoric (with rh-) is first recorded about 1475, in imitation of the Latin spelling. The extended sense of “mastery of literary eloquence, elegance in writing or speech,” appeared in Middle English in 1395, in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The depreciatory meaning of “language characterized by artificial, ostentatious, or exaggerated expression,” is first recorded in the 1500s.

3) For an amazingly in-depth account of how the ancient Greeks (and to a lesser extent, the Romans) thought about rhetoric, along with some insight as to how it evolved over time in Greek society, check out the entry for rhetoric in The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Religion, Literature, and Art (Seyffert). Here’s a taste:

Among the Greeks, rhetorike comprised the practical as well as the theoretical art of speaking, and rhetor denoted an orator no less than a teacher of oratory. Among the Romans, it denoted only the latter, the actual speaker being called orator. The first men, who reduced oratory to a system capable of being taught, appeared among the Sicilian Greeks, who, according to testimony of the ancients, were distinguished for the keenness of their understanding and their love of disputation.

I missed “Scripture Sunday.” I missed “Text Tuesday.” I even missed “Word Wednesday.” I’m a bad person. I have a good excuse, though: I got a job! I will not, however, let gainful employment stand in the way of Front Matter Friday (FMF). In fact, I’ll even give it to you a day early because the workplace gods have smiled upon me and I have the day off.

This week’s installment of FMF comes from my favorite general dictionary: Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, College Edition (World Publishing Co. 1966). I’m not really sure why I prefer this dictionary to the others at my disposal. I suppose it’s a lot of little things, such as the layout, the typeface, the fact that it never let’s me down, etc. However, now that I’ve read the dictionary’s “Foreward,” I know why it’s editors think it’s the bees knees. Here’s what they have to say*. As usual, my comments on the text follow.

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ForewardWebster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, College Edition

As this edition of Webster’s New World Dictionary is being prepared to go to press, the editors are systematically including in the plate proofs the death dates of recently deceased notables, new terms and senses resulting from the latest technological advancements, and such other challenges and additions as last-minute developments make necessary.

This final gesture in the interest of up-to-dateness is a rather symbolic one, a logical extension of the lexicographic principles that have guided the editors in the preparation of this work. For just as historical and scientific concepts refuse to remain fixed, unyielding entities, so too a living language will not permit itself to be immutably pinned down1. The excellent dictionaries of Dr. [Samuel] Johnson and Nathaniel Bailey, remarkable thought they were in their days2, have little more pertinence for the present-day reader of the New York Times that the alchemical writings of Roger Bacon have for a nuclear physicist.

Johnson in some knucklehead’s anteroom.

Not only could the earlier dictionaries have no knowledge of dilantin, snorkel, betatron, cortisone, ACTH, cybernetics, and vibraphone, but they would be of no help uncovering the meanings of extrapolate, parking meter, iron curtain, cold war, simulcast, and hot-foot. Moreover, even those senses of words that have continued currency from the time of Dr. Johnson to the present are in the earlier dictionaries defined in a language that falls strangely on 20th century ears3.

Recognizing that modern lexicography is a disciplined science, [the scholars and editorial workers who compiled this dictionary] were nevertheless determined to avoid the dogmatism that led Devil’s Dictionary author Ambrose Bierce to define dictionary as “a malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic.4” This dictionary was not create the impression that it was authoritarian, laying down the law about usage; it was to play, rather, the role of a friendly guide, pointing out the safe, well-traveled roads.5

Bierce

Webster’s New World Dictionary … is neither an abridgement nor a revision of some earlier work. It is a new dictionary in which every definition has been written afresh in the simplest language consistent with accuracy and fullness.6

In choosing the words to be entered and defined, the editors used as their criterion the frequency of occurrence in contemporary American usage and in readings generally required of college and university students insofar as it could be determined. As a result, the dictionary contains over 142,000 vocabulary entries, more than any other comparable American desk dictionary. All entries are arranged in a single alphabetical list, so that there is no need to leaf through numerous supplements and prefatory lists, as well as the dictionary proper, to find such entries as Isaiah, Charlemagne, Atlantic, John Bull, viz., F.O.B., OHG., a priori, and coup de grace.

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Commentary:

1) It’s true, living languages keep growing. New words are added all the time and some even end up in a dictionary.

2) Legend has it that, in 1746, a group of publishers approached Johnson with an idea about creating an authoritative dictionary of the English language. A contract with William Strahan (Scottish printer and publisher) and associates was signed on June 18, 1746. Johnson’s dictionary was not the first, but it was the most commonly used and imitated for the 150 years between its first publication and the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1928.

Bailey was the author of several dictionaries, including his Universal Etymological Dictionary, which appeared in 1721. His Dictionarium Britannicum (1730 and 1736) is said to be the primary resource mined by Johnson his dictionary.

4) I looked but I couldn’t find any other snarky snaps about dictionaries from commentators like Bierce. I did however, find a few comments that shed some light on why Bierce wou have such a toxic take on these tomes. As Jonathon Green writes in Chasing the Sun,

The task of lexicography might, when viewed with the jaundiced eye, entail a good deal of drudgery, but like even the lowliest of parish priests, its practitioner remained the guardian of the sacred truths, the conduit that delivered them to the unversed masses.

Green also includes the thoughts of British poet and writer Rod Mengham, who notes that, in the 17th and 18th centuries:

The compiling of a dictionary … entailed an exercising of authority on an unprecedented scale. The lexicographer would determine what be included in, and what should be excluded from, a body of knowledge that the pragmatic user of his work would learn to regard as the foundation of the national language and culture…. The dictionary could become an instrument of social control, dispensed indirectly and fostering assumptions that need not be insisted on too forcibly.

Clearly, it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump these ideas about lexicographers to prescriptivism.

5) This paragraph references, once again, the ongoing debate over prescriptive and descriptive dictionaries; that is, whether dictionaries ought to prescribe how the words in English ought to be used rather than describe how the words that comprise the English language are being used. The former (prescriptivists) are seen by their opponents as stodgy, anal-retentive types who fear the debasement of the language and (by extension) the decay of the social fabric, while the latter (descriptivists) are seen by their opponents as lacking in standards and guilty of shirking their duties as guardians of our remarkable tongue. (For more on this, see the link above and Kory Stamper’s Word by Word).

This is not to say, however, that there isn’t a “third way.” Think of it as a middle-of-the-road approach that allows lexicographers to stay abreast of the new terms making their way into the lexicon, while still calling attention to the more traditional uses or, at the very least, pointing out which words are best suited for particular situations (i.e., maybe don’t use “ain’t” in court or while defending your dissertation), hence the notion of “pointing out the safe, well-traveled roads.”

6) As referenced in the previous installment of Front Matter Friday, dictionary publishers are out to make a buck, which is why their editors go to great lengths to let folks know how their dictionary stands out from the lexicographical herd. Hence the editor of this volume making it known that this is indeed a “new dictionary” and not a previous release dressed in a new jacket, that the words this “college edition” contains will likely be encountered by actual college students, and, of course, that it is simultaneously authoritative and easy to use. More of this commercial speak can be found in these old-timey dictionary advertisements.

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* Naturally, the Foreward is long and I’m not about to key-in the entire piece. If you’d like to read it in it’s entirety, check it out.

If digging into the definitions and etymologies of words for mere shits and giggles wasn’t enough of an advertisement for my uncoolness, consider this: I like to read dictionary introductions. I know what you’re thinking. “What’s the matter, Joe, can’t find any golf to watch on the TV?”

Point taken. Admittedly, dictionary introductions can be rather dull affairs. Every so often, though, I come across one so full of attitude, opinion, and (dare I say) snark, that it deserves to be the subject of its own post. Hence the following (and first!) installment of “Front Matter Friday,” a new feature on The Butter Lamb offering excerpts from dictionary introductions … err … on Friday, along with some commentary by yours truly. Yup, Friday just got better!

This week’s installment comes from the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1969). Not only does this introduction demonstrate the editors’ passion for dictionary authorship and general word nerd-ism, but it also contains some interesting ideas and phrases that reveal the editors’ beliefs about 1) the role dictionaries ought to play in society and 2) their competition in the book-seller’s marketplace.

Enjoy.

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Introduction:
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1969)

… At a time when the language, already a historical melting pot, is under constant challenge1—from the scientist, the bureaucrat, the broadcaster, the innovator of every political stripe, even the voyager in space—the [editors of the American Heritage Publishing Company] undertook to prepare a new dictionary. It would faithfully record our language, the duty of any lexicographer, but it would not, like so many others in these permissive times2, rest there. On the contrary, it would add the essential dimension of guidance, that sensible guidance toward grace and precision which intelligent people seek in a dictionary3. They will find it here, in a dictionary that is in many respects a notable departure from previous British and American lexicographical practice.

To many people, the dictionary is a forbidding volume, a useful but bleak compendium, to be referred to hastily for needed information, such as spelling and pronunciation. Yet, what a dictionary ought to be is a treasury of information about every aspect of words, our most essential tools of communication. It should be an agreeable companion. By knowledgeable use of the dictionary we should learn where a word has come from, precisely what its various shades of meaning are today, and its social status4.

[…]

A major concern of the editors has been the language used in the word definitions themselves. Our aim has been to phrase definitions in concise, lucid prose. Here, too, we have undertaken to eliminate “dictionary shorthand”—the frustrating signs, symbols, and abbreviations that are commonplace in other dictionaries5. Except for a few obvious abbreviations (n. for noun, v. for verb, and the like), we have followed a policy of spelling out all definitions. Where necessary to clarify a meaningful or idiomatic usage, the editors have included an example, either quoted from literature or staff written. We have also eliminated the meaningless lists of undefined compound forms which serve, in many American dictionaries, merely the purpose of inflating the so-called “entry count.” 6

[…]

… A primary aim of our staff has been to make this dictionary as readable as we possibly could. We editors know that dictionaries can be fascinating7. Working closely with them day by day, we see the vast amounts of interesting information that many users are not aware of, usually because it is hard to work one’s way through the thorny underbrush of conventional sign language to find the treasure that lies buried in the entries. It is our earnest hope that, by presenting our dictionary in inviting and readily readable fashion, without any lessening of authority8, we will encourage the reader to explore and enjoy the riches of our remarkable tongue.

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Some Thoughts:

1) I was struck by this notion that “the language … is under constant challenge.” For editors of a dictionary, challenge is interesting word choice. Save for the use of euphemistic language, which obfuscates, language isn’t being “challenged” by words from scientific and other fields, it’s expanding.

2) The use of the phrase “these permissive times” is a bit of an elbow in the ribs referral to the Webster’s Third International Dictionary (1961), which was considered by some in the dictionary world to be too (you guessed it) “permissive” in that it didn’t instruct readers in the use of “proper English.” Chief among Webster’s 3rd’s no-nos was the inclusion of the word “ain’t” (the horror). This gets us to the ongoing debate over prescriptive and descriptive dictionaries; that is, whether dictionaries ought to prescribe how the words in English ought to be used rather than describe how the words that comprise the English language are being used. The former (prescriptivists) are seen by their opponents as stodgy, anal-retentive types who fear the debasement of the language and (by extension) the decay of the social fabric, while the latter (descriptivists) are seen by their opponents as lacking in standards and guilty of shirking their duties as guardians of our remarkable tongue. (For more on this, see the link above and Kory Stamper’s Word by Word).

3) Following up on the preceding note, the gist here is that the dictionary ought to provide “sensible guidance toward grace and precision,” (read definitions that are accurate and socially acceptable), which is what intelligent people (read: discerning people wary of such permissiveness) want.

4) Do words have “social status”? Yes. This is why most dictionaries let you know if a certain use of a word is considered “archaic,” “obsolete,” “informal,” and the like. This is also a reference to the hub-bub over Webster’s third, which critics chastised for “eliminating the labels “colloquial”, “correct”, “incorrect”, “proper,” “improper,” “erroneous,” “humorous,” “jocular,” “poetic,” and “contemptuous,” etc.

5) Is “dictionary shorthand”—the signs, symbols, and abbreviations that are commonplace in other dictionaries—really “frustrating”? I suppose. Of course, most dictionaries that use such abbreviations include a key or guide to these abbreviations in the front. It seems to me that if you took a second to look up a word in a book, you can take another to look up the meaning of an abbreviation. I mean, it’s right there….

6) Do dictionary publishers really try to “inflate” their “entry counts.” In a word, yes. Or at least they have. For proof of this, check out old-timey dictionary advertisements that boast about the number of entries a dictionary contains. Stamper’s Word by Word has more on this too.

7) “We editors know that dictionaries can be fascinating.” This is word nerd-ism pure and simple, and I love it.

8) This sentence, “presenting our dictionary in inviting and readily readable fashion, without any lessening of authority,” demonstrates the dictionary maker’s dilemma. In addition to making a sideways reference to the whole permissiveness thing (see above), dictionary publishers worked hard to balance the commercial considerations of making a text that was both “authoritative” and “inviting.” This is less of a problem nowadays with digital (or online) dictionaries, but for publishers back in the day, it was real concern. Hence the use of images/illustrations and other graphic design techniques to make such large books more inviting. [Note: I didn’t include it here, but other parts of this introduction mentions the editors’ “fresh approach” that incorporates “the most recent advances in typographic design and printing.” – Ed.]

About a month ago, while doing something stupid, I damaged a ligament in my left shoulder and tore my bicep. It was a serious injury and, although I didn’t have to have surgery, I’ve been dealing with the fallout from this accident ever since. In doing so, it’s made me think about Yoda’s famous claim that we are “luminous beings, not this crude matter.” I agree with him (he’s a 900 year-old Jedi master after all), but there’s no getting around the fact that the flesh is something with which we must deal each and every day. But what is this thing we refer to as our flesh? Our skin and cartilage? Our ligaments, muscles, and tendons? All of it combined except our bones? And where does the word come from, given it’s so different from the other words — body, guts, innards, etc. — we use to refer to our crude matter? Let’s find out! Welcome to Word Wednesday.

Leaving aside the “soft, pulpy substance of fruit or a plant,” or the “muscular tissue, or tissues generally of animals, regarded as an article of food,” Flesh, says the Oxford English Dictionary, is the “soft substance, especially the muscular parts of an animal body; that which covers the framework of the bones and is enclosed by the skin.”

The Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary (Dorset and Barber) and Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language say the same … and by that I mean, exactly the same, even the part about the fruit. (See the Kory Stamper’s Word By Word for more on plagiarism in dictionaries.) Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) offers similar verbiage as well, but adds that the word is typically reserved the … um … flesh of vertebrates, and that it is distinguished from “internal organs, bone, and integument (aka: something that covers or envelopes, such as skin). Even the medical dictionaries on the SDCL’s shelves offer the same definition.

There seems to be similar consensus regarding the word’s etymology, too. The Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories says flesh comes from the Old English word flaesc, which is Germanic in origin and related to Dutch vlees and German fleisch. The Dictionary of Word Origins (Ayto) agrees, but adds a little more color, noting that, “The etymological notion underlying flesh, and its near relative flitch ‘side of bacon’ [Old English], is of ‘slitting open and cutting up an animal’s carcase for food.'”

The Chambers Dictionary of Etymology hits these same notes, but calls into question the part about bacon by noting, “(modern) German fleisch … is possibly related to Old Icelandic flesk, swine’s flesh (bacon), through Old English flaec, though this form is considered an inaccurate or dialectical spelling by the [Oxford English Dictionary].” Partridge’s Origins offers a different take on the swine thing and says flesk is an Old Norse word for bacon AND pork, but the author provides himself an out by adding the abbreviation “o.o.o.,” meaning “of obscure origin,” at the end of the entry.

Okay, so now that we’re all up to speed on the meaning and etymology of flesh, you can go ahead and forget it because, in the words of the master, you’re not that crude matter.

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Postscript:

Although all my dictionaries seemed to be in agreement about the definition of flesh,Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary (1940), includes information about the colors one might encounter while examining the flesh of food animals. I thought you might get a kick out of it … or maybe find it useful … so I’ve included it here.

Yellow: May be produced by food. In disease due to biliary compounds.
Brown: Rare, except in old meat undergoing decomposition.
Dark Purple: May indicate animal has died a natural death, suffered from acute
fever, tuberculosis, or rinderpest. Avoid.
Dark Reddish-Brown: May indicate animal has been hunted or overdriven,
poisoned, drowned, or suffocated. Avoid.
Scarlett: Rare. Indicates arsenic or monoxide poisoning.
Green or Violet: Indicates the beginning of putrefaction. Dangerous.
Saffron: Indicates artificial coloring or smoked pork.
Brilliant Red: Due to poisonous bacteria.
White: Rare, except in calves. Found in certain diseases. Avoid.

In the past few months, I’ve added at least 50 new books to the SDCL’s collection and some of them are real gems. To highlight these terrific texts, I thought I’d create a new feature on The Butter Lamb: Text Tuesday. Welcome to the first installment.

This week’s text is Wicked Words: A Treasury of Curses, Insults, Put-Downs, and Other Formerly Unprintable Terms from Anglo-Saxon Times to the Present by Hugh Rawson (1989). That’s a long title and it’s a subtle indicator of the wordiness one finds between its covers. That’s not a complaint, for in addition to being rightly described as a “treasury” (defined in one sense as “a collection or supply of excellent or highlyprizedwritings,works of art,etc), the book should be treasured for its breadth and thoroughness. (The entry for fuck is 10 nearly 10 fucking pages!)

The one part of the title I might quibble with, though, is the word “unprintable.” Yes, some of the words in the book certainly were unprintable at one time. Some still are. I’m not sure, however, if that descriptor applies to every entry in the book. There are plenty (e.g., cad, cadger, cannon fodder, carpetbagger, cesspool, charlatan, cult, etc … and that’s just the words that begin with C!) that don’t seem all that wicked and/or offensive. Then again, I could be wrong. Maybe cad was an unprintable and wicked word back in the day. What do I know?

Speaking of the words, Wicked Words does a fine job of listing “all the classic disparaging terms” for men and women, people of particular nationalities, and those (un)fortunate enough to have a denigrated occupation. Or, to put it another way, Wicked Words contains all of the classist, racist, and sexist terms your chud of an uncle uses on Thanksgiving after he’s had one too many bottles of Michelob. This is NOT what makes the book shine. What does is Rawson’s scholarship. To see what I mean, check out the following excerpt from the book’s introduction:

The messages conveyed by “bad” words are of three types: the profane, the obscene, and the insulting. Each represents a different form of abuse. Profanity abuses sacred belief: it is irreligious, by definition and by origin, coming from the Latin pro (before, outside) + fanum (temple). Obscenity abuses the body, the temple of the self: It derives from the Latin obscenus, probably from caenum (filth). Obscenity includes pornography, from the Greek skatos (dung, shit) + logy (the science or study of). Insult abuses other individuals, typically in terms of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, political persuasion, sex, mental abilities, or physical peculiarities. It comes from the Latin insultare (to leap upon).

Any knucklehead can put together a list of blue or naughty words, and then offer a clumsy, haphazard definition for each. Rawson, thankfully, takes the time to give his readers so much more: rich definitions, etymologies, and examples of usage from literature, news sources, and more. But hey, don’t take my word for it. Check out the following entries of some words that, while maybe not (or no longer) “wicked,” were at least new to me.

Note: I’m just offering brief snippets here. To see the entries in their entirety, check out the book.

Clinchpoop. A boor. (This 16th century term of contempt is obsolete, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.) In theory, clinchpoop probably should be reserved for drunken mariners and other seagoing boors.

Gascon. A braggart, one who indulges in extravagant boasting. This is an ethnic slur, alluding to the inhabitants of Gascony in southwestern France. They were regarded as great boasters from at least the 18th century.

Goth. A rude, uncivilized person, especially one who goes out of his way to destroy artworks and other hallmarks of high culture. The Goths, a Germanic people who descended on the Roman Empire in the early part of the Christian era, were divided into two main branches, the East Goths, or Ostrogoths, and the West Goths, or Visigoths. See also Barbarian and Vandal. [Note: Rawson says nothing about people who dress in all black, listen to sad and dour music, and are obsessed with finality and death.]

Hockey (hocky). Variously: semen, excrement, nonsense. The origin of this term is not known; it may come from hokum. If its meaning of nonsense really is the original one, then hockey is an exception among words of this sort, which ordinarily evolve in the opposite direction. Hockey seems fairly euphemistic, nevertheless, it has been tabooed in some square circles, especially in the southern United States.

Mossback. An extreme conservative or, as an adjective, one who acts that way. The epithet first appeared as mossyback during the Civil War when it was applied to the Southerners who fled in the woods or swamps to escape conscription into the Confederate Army. Some of them seemed to have remained hidden so long that moss grew on their backs.

Pelican. An old car or jalopy, a big eater or glutton, a tough woman or prostitute. The last sense is the least common and may have been limited to New Orleans, the largest city in the Pelican State.

Xanthippe and Socrates

Runnion (ronion, ronyon). An old insult for a woman that warrants revival if only because no one is sure exactly what it means. Lexicographers have more or less thrown up their hands at this. The Oxford English Dictionary simply calls it “an abusive term applied to a woman.” Samuel Johnson treated the different spellings as different words, defining ronion as ” a fat bulky woman” and runnion as “A paltry scurvy wretch.”

Tout. An aggressive purveyor of frequently erroneous information, especially at a racetrack; as a verb, to solicit or to sell in a pushy way. The word is underworld slang from the 18th century (a tout originally was a lookout) and it has never escaped its seamy origins.

Xanthippe. A bad-tempered woman, a scold; from the name of the wife of Socrates, who got such bad press from ancient writers that her name became generic for “shrew.” [Ouch – Ed.] It has been suggested that 1) because of Xanthippe, Socrates didn’t really mind having to take hemlock, [Again, ouch – Ed.] and 2) the poor woman may have been driven around the bend by having a philosopher for a husband.

Do you know of a reference text I should feature on Text Tuesday? Is there one from the SCDL’s collection that you’d like me to feature in a future installment? Let me know!

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The Butter Lamb is the official blog of the Butter Lamb Reference Library (BLRL) and Butter Lamb Press.

To see a list of the books in the BLRL’s collection, click the link beneath the header image.

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